C CUNYB/Clarke     December, :



AFabulous World

(–)

Thus I shall be content to continue...as if my plan were only to tell you a fable.

(xi.)

I

late, when he was thirty-two years old, Descartes set out for

the United Provinces for the second time in his life.The reasons

he offered friends for his departure from France were that he wished to

avoid the customary distractions of a gentleman’s life (such as visiting

friends and attending court), and that he wanted to escape the heat of the

French climate. Descartes’ subsequent frequent changes of address, and

his almost obsessive efforts to conceal his precise location even from trusted

friends, make the first reason more plausible than it might otherwise seem.

During the period fromto, the new immigrant had at least five

addresses, at Franeker, Amsterdam (twice), Leiden, and Deventer, and on

two occasions he considered leaving the country either to return to France

or to visit England.Since he asked Mersenne not to reveal his address and

seems even to have provided misleading return addresses on his letters,

onemust assume that he wished to enjoy the seclusion that he claimed

was necessary for his studies.His quasi-eremitical success is reflected

in the pun used by some of those who were frustrated by his hiding,

when they spelled his name as ‘Monsieur d’Escartes’ (Mr. Evasion). Apart

from avoiding the unwelcome company of others, Descartes also seems to

have preferred the temperate climate of northern countries, where he

hoped to avoid ‘the sicknesses caused by the heat of the air.’He evidently

believed that many of the plagues that affected cities were caused by warm

weather.

Whatever the reasons for his obsessive reclusiveness, the intellectual

results of this retreat were as significant as anything that he accomplished

during the rest of his life. This was the time during which he first got a

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